Following on from the publication of the NIHR Dissemination Centre's 'Comprehensive Care: Older people living with frailty in hospitals', work has begun to design and implement an audit looking at the standard of care for those living with frailty as they travel through the secondary care system.
The Wessex-wide audit will cover all specialties in the hospital to build a picture of frailty care in the region, and provide a benchmark on which to drive up standards for those living with or at risk of frailty thus improving patient experiences and outcomes. It is anticipated that once established, this audit could be rolled out nationally.
The audit will be designed and implemented in partnership with secondary care partners who form the Wessex AHSN Healthy Ageing Acute Expert Group. It will be an organisational questionnaire which will draw on case note review as required. Further specialist input will be sought for the design and dissemination of the audit from those with audit experience, as well as from national frailty experts, members of the British Geriatric Society and academic leads. This audit intends to be unique to the system and valued for improving care, not duplicating existing audits with themes that cross cut with frailty such as dementia. To avoid this a review of other audits will be performed.